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FETAL PARTS RESEARCH - THE MORAL DIMENSIONS

Prof. Chris Kaczor

Fetal Parts Research: Fight Against Diseases

Research on human fetal life involves numerous complex medical, moral, and legal aspects. It is not always easy, nor desirable, to seal off one aspect from another but my remarks today will focus on the moral aspects. The topic is a timely and important one because research on human fetal life is reportedly a growing industry and the subject of legal developments both in the United States and around the world.1

In this article, I would like to present arguments both for and against such research.The argument for fetal research is fairly straightforward. Because of the unique characteristics of cells from human beings in early stages of development, research on embryos and fetuses may provide key weapons in the fight against disease. Fetal tissue holds promise in treating Parkinson’s disease,2 in ending certain kinds of paralysis,3 in helping those with diabetes, MS,4 as well as in treating patients with Alzheimer’s and Huntington’s disease.5. Others have argued that fetal tissue holds promise for treatment of sickle cell anemia, leukemia, and AIDS.6 Fetal retinal transplants may be a promising treatment for some 100,000 Americans suffering from old age blindness.7

The fight against diseases, especially these serious diseases causing
untold suffering for many people, must be continuous and heroic. Even
though fetal research does not hold the certainty but only a possibility
of cures for such diseases,8 such possibilities should be
realized if one has the resources and there is no moral impediment to
doing so. But that remains the question.

Is there a moral impediment to such research? Should the ethical
question even be raised?

Suppose we could cure all diseases on earth and extend the human lifespan
to a comfortable, active and fit 95 at which time a person would die
peacefully in sleep.Or, perhaps even better, suppose we could drink
a magic potion and live forever. But suppose further that in order to
make the magic potion we would have to cannibalize a certain class of
people, say teenage girls. Not all of them mind you, just a few dozen
to keep the country going for the year.

Or to make the benefits even more appealing, let’s recall the story
told by Ursula K. Le Guin, The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas.

In this short story, the residents of the town Omelas live in perfect harmony. They enjoy a heavenly utopia of beauty, friendship, and vitality.But by some cosmic juxtaposition of Ying balancing Yang, the foundation of all their delirious joy is the suffering and indignity of small child who remains alone locked in a basement without light or visitors. The child looks six but is really ten and “is so thin there are no calves to its legs; its belly protrudes; it lives on a half-bowl of corn meal and grease a day.It is naked.Its buttocks and thighs are a mass of fettered sores, as it sits in its own excrement continually.”

Le Guin writes:

They all know [the child] is there, all the people of Omelas.Some of them have come to see it; others are content merely to know it is there.They all know that it has to be there. Some of them understand why, and some do not, but they all understand that their happiness, the beauty of their city, the tenderness of their friendship, the health of their children, the wisdom of their scholars, the skill of their makers, even the abundance of their harvest and the kindly weathers of their skies, depend wholly on this child’s abominable misery.

Le Guin paints in grim literary detail the chilling question asked in The Brothers Karamazov by Ivan to his brother Alyosha.

Tell me yourself, I challenge you — answer. Imagine that you are creating a fabric of human destiny with the object of making men happy in the end, giving them peace and rest at last, but that it was essential and inevitable to torture to death only one tiny creature—that little child beating its breast with its fist, for instance—and to found that edifice on its unavenged tears, would you consent to be the architect on those conditions? Tell me, and tell the truth.9

Alyosha answers rightly. The story of Omelas and the question asked by Ivan Karamazov involve much greater benefits than fetal research ever could, even if all its potential breakthroughs were realized. Of course, I am not claiming that fetal research involves torturing young children, but clearly only the most crass utilitarian could ignore pressing moral questions simply by invoking the potential benefits of such research.

What are these moral questions?

When considering the ethics of fetal research, a number of different arguments can be used to show its morally problematic nature. Fetal research lends credibility to those who contemplate abortion and wish to rationalize their selfish action as in some way altruistic. Although abortion would not disappear were fetal research to end completely, still there may be some people whose ambivalence about abortion is tipped in favor of termination based on this factor. Although the law indicates that consent to donate the fetus must be secured only after the consent for the abortion has taken place, widespread knowledge of fetal research alters the cultural climate, even if only slightly, to be more favorable to abortion. This factor partially explains why the National Abortion Rights Action League and Planned Parenthood have been tireless advocates for such research.

Violation of Human Dignity

I want to focus on other morally problematic aspects of fetal research.
The first is that fetal research as it is now carried out today in the
United States violates the human dignity of the unborn through violating
agreed upon principles governing organ donations generally. Secondly,
the legal and moral restrictions imposed on fetal research not only
have failed to secure ethical research but the nature of the research
itself gives an incentive to morally problematic behavior.

Let me begin by simply laying out a few of my presuppositions. I believe these claims are rationally defensible though I will not be offering a defense of them now. First, there is at least one distinct human person existing from conception. Second, all human persons regardless of size, dependency, age, or condition are equal in human dignity and should be accorded respect. Needless to say there are many people who would not agree with one or both assumptions. There are radical disputes about whether each human life in the womb is truly to be considered a person.

However, Pope John Paul II reasons rightly that even the probability of the existence of a human person should lead to a clear prohibition of any experimentation. The possibility of error prompts one to err on the side of protection of human life.

Even if the presence of a spiritual soul cannot be ascertained by empirical data, the results themselves of scientific research on the human embryo provide "a valuable indication for discerning by the use of reason a personal presence at the moment of the first appearance of a human life: how could a human individual not be a human person?"

The Result of Human Procreation Deserves Unconditional Respect

Furthermore, what is at stake is so important that, from the standpoint
of moral obligation, the mere probability that a human person is involved
would suffice to justify an absolutely clear prohibition of any intervention
aimed at killing a human embryo. The Church has always taught and continues
to teach that the result of human procreation, from the first moment
of its existence, must be guaranteed that unconditional respect which
is morally due to the human being in his or her totality and unity as
body and spirit: "The human being is to be respected and treated as
a person from the moment of conception; and therefore from that same
moment his rights as a person must be recognized, among which in the
first place is the inviolable right of every innocent human being to
life."10

If there is a possibility that someone is in a building scheduled to be demolished, one ought not proceed based on a doubt.If your target might be a hunter or a deer, you ought not to shoot until your doubt is resolved. Thus, disputes about the personhood of the unborn suggest that one ought to act as if the unborn human being is a person if there are doubts.Thus, the principles generally governing human transplantation and tissue use should thus also govern the use of tissue of unborn human life. What are these principles?

To Donate One's Body to Science

In order to “donate one’s body to science,” in the case of an adult
there must be voluntary, informed consent or, in the case of a minor,
informed consent from a parent. Thus, were a child to die in some tragic
accident, it would be permissible for her parents to donate her organs
to a needy person or to donate the body for legitimate scientific research.
As long as the body is given due respect and not (as formerly sometimes
happened with cremation) as a token of one’s disbelief in the resurrection
of the body or hatred of the diseased, it is not wrong to use human
corpses in a way that benefits others. In fact, it is laudable.

Tissue and Organ Donation

How would these widely accepted norms for tissue and organ donation
apply in the case of fetal tissue research?Obviously in the case of
the use of fetal tissue, a fetus cannot give consent to have his or
her body donated to science, and so parental consent must be given.
According to the law, parental consent indeed must be given; but a moral
problem definitely remains.

The Source of Parental Rights

If the philosopher Immanuel Kant is to be believed,11 parental
rights over their children arise because of parental duties. In procreating
a child, parents incur duties to that child. The duties of parents to
their child include looking after the child’s well-being and development
until that child can exercise reason on his or her own. However, parents
cannot exercise this duty over children unless they have rights to control
and command the obedience of children. The limits of parental authority
then are defined by what gives rise to parental authority, namely the
duty to do good for the child. Thus parental authority never extends
to a right to do anything whatsoever that is intentionally harmful to
their children, e.g. sexual abuse, selling into slavery, killing, etc.
For this same reason, a child may rightfully and indeed should disobey
parental requests to do evil.Of course, such a determination could be
difficult to make, and one hopes that such abuses of parental authority
are few. In any case, parental authority over children derives from
their duties to protect and nurture their children, and their authority
over their children is circumscribed by these duties.

Thus, should a parent fail to care for a child in a sufficiently grave way, that parent’s rights to his or her child are morally, and also sometimes legally, terminated. The parent who grossly abuses his child has failed in his duty to that child and so no longer enjoys parental authority over that child. Clearly, intentionally killing one’s own offspring is a grave failure of a parent’s duty to care properly for that child. Thus, the parent, in having seriously failed in his or her parental duties, lacks any authority whatsoever over that child, and therefore over his or her remains. Thus, the moral right to decide about the child’s remains is terminated in the choice to abort the child. Legally, of course, the “right to choose” what happens to the child’s corpse still remains intact, reflecting once again the gross cleavage in the United States between the legal and moral spheres under current law.Nor can anyone else involved in the child’s death claim a moral right to dispose of the child’s remains.

Making the Best of a Bad Situation?

A reasonable objection might be made that fetal research makes the
best of a bad situation. Under the current law in the United States,
and even more importantly in the current cultural situation, abortions
will take place. The numbers vary somewhat but each year in the U.S.
we can expect well over one million of them.Forbidding fetal research
would not eliminate abortion or make parents want, or at least not harm,
their children. Why not bring some good out of something tragic?

Research On Aborted Fetuses

This objection appeals to a reasonable moral principle. If one cannot
prevent evil, then one should try to minimize it or make the best of
it. But the undertaking of fetal research without proper authorization
is itself an evil insofar dishonors the remains of a human being. A
human body, even a corpse, is not material that can be used at will.
Abortion denies the humanity of the unborn in a grave way, but research
on aborted fetuses denies humanity again. We would not consider the
body of a six year old “donated to science” unless parental consent
were given, even if such research would put a tragic event to a good
use. Indeed, only a Dr. Frankenstein would illicitly take a corpse for
research without proper permission because such a use violates the dignity
of a human person whose remains should still be respected.

The Notion of Spare Embryos

Even if the embryo or fetus is not obtained from abortion, the other
most common way of obtaining fetal tissue, namely “spare embryos” from
IVF,is also problematic. Another danger of embryo experimentation and
fetal tissue use consists in a dehumanization of unborn human life as
so many “spare parts” for the use of others. Stem cells may be obtained
from aborted fetuses, but they may also be obtained from “spare” human
embryos from in vitro fertilization. John Paul II in Evangelium
Vitae notes that this dehumanization is one of the harmful side-effects
of various artificial kinds of reproduction.

The various techniques of artificial reproduction, which would seem to be at the service of life and which are frequently used with this intention, actually open the door to new threats against life. Apart from the fact that they are morally unacceptable, since they separate procreation from the fully human context of the conjugal act, these techniques have a high rate of failure: not just failure in relation to fertilization but with regard to the subsequent development of the embryo, which is exposed to the risk of death, generally within a very short space of time. Furthermore, the number of embryos produced is often greater than that needed for implantation in the woman's womb, and these so-called "spare embryos" are then destroyed or used for research which, under the pretext of scientific or medical progress, in fact reduces human life to the level of simple "biological material" to be freely disposed of.1214

Thus, what seems to be in the services of life undermines the true value of the person. Such use of human being is akin to slavery.One person is used as if property, without proper consent to benefit another. Fetal research can lead to a commodification of human life, exemplified in its most chilling form by the auctioning of various human body parts for research. Such fetal research characteristically fails to respect the humanity of the fetus by using his or her body, even in death, simply as a means to an end.

Failure of Safeguards

The problematic nature of research on human fetal life has led critics as well as advocates of such research to agree to a series of guidelines for carrying out of such research. Many of these ethical guidelines have become encoded in the law.For instance, the National Health and Medical Research Council’s Statement on Human Experimentation and Supplementary Notes declares that “there should be no element of commerce involved in the transfer of human fetal tissue.”13 Federal law, the NIH [National Institute of Health] Revitalization Act of 1993, echoes the same injunction:“It shall be unlawful for any person to knowingly acquire, receive, or otherwise transfer any human fetal tissue for valuable consideration if the transfer affects interstate commerce.”14 In addition, the National Organ Transplant Act (NOTA) makes is a criminal offense “to knowingly acquire, receive or otherwise transfer any human organ” for valuable consideration, fetal body parts inclusive.15

Such restrictions undermine the arguments given by advocates of legalized abortion
in so far as they only make sense if the humanity of the fetus is at
least tacitly recognized. After all, very few would object morally or
legally to the interstate transport of animal body parts or the selling
of those parts for profit. Indeed, Albertson’s, Vons, and Ralph’s sell
fish, poultry, and livestock that have been transported across state
lines, and grocery stores sell these products for profit. Those who
do not object to eating animals would probably not object to research
done on animals in order to save human lives.If the unborn human being
is really no more morally and legally significant than a “new born guppy”
as Mary Anne Warren suggests,[16]then the restrictions on the sale and
transport of fetal body parts should be precisely the same as those
governing other animals. That almost everyone agrees to these restrictions
is tacit agreement that almost everyone implicitly recognizes the humanity
of the unborn.

"It is not really human"

Ironically, fetal tissue research itself undermines one of the most common arguments in favor of abortion. We are told: “It’s not really human.” However it is also argued that human fetal research must take place, and that one cannot substitute research on non-human animals, because cells from other kinds of animals react differently than human cells. The research is attempting to cure diseases in humans not lab rats.Of course, in this argument is the tacit admission that the fetus is indeed a human being. When arguing for abortion, the humanity of the fetus is forgotten; when arguing for fetal research, the necessity of using human fetuses is a necessary element.

A Clever Loophole

Unfortunately, these safeguards have not in fact prevented trafficking
in human body parts.In fact, the legal safeguards are not as stringent
as they might appear. In a clever loophole to these restrictions, President
Clinton signed the National Institute of Health Revitalization Act of
1993 which allowed for: “reasonable payments associated with the transportation,
implantation, processing, preservation, quality control, or storage
of fetal tissue.”17 This has led to a blackmarket, or perhaps
due to this loophole a grey market, of selling fetal body parts. The
chilling price chart used by Opening Lines: A Division of Consultative
and Diagnostic Pathology, Inc. lists in callous detail the price for
each fetal body part : Eyes (> 8 Weeks) $50, Intact Trunk (with/without
limbs) $500, Lungs and Heart Block $150, Skin (> 12 Weeks) $100, ears
for $75 a pair, arms or legs $150, a brain for $999, tax not included.

Voluntary Selling of Organs

Many ethicists agree that even voluntary selling of organs fails to
respect the dignity of the human person. In the words of Leon R. Kass:
“The idea of commodification of human flesh repels us, quite properly
I would say, because we sense that the human body especially belongs
in that category of things that defy or resist commensuration—like love
or friendship or life itself. . . . We surpass all defensible limits
of such conventional commodification when we contemplate making the
convention-maker—the human being—just another one of the commensurables.
The end comes to be treated as mere means.Selling our bodies, we come
perilously close to selling out our souls.”18 If even voluntary
selling of organs is morally wrong, obviously the selling of body parts
of others who have not volunteered whether in slavery, prostitution,
or otherwise is rightly considered the most odious of enterprises.

A Shop to Sell Organs

Since the larger and healthier “specimens” can command a higher market
value, abortionists have a strong financial incentive to perform later
term abortions that leave the fetus as intact as possible.According
to some involved in the business, this incentive has led some to slide
from abortion to infanticide. An actual interview with an individual
whose identity here will be "Kelly" reveals some of the ghastly details.Imagine
you are in an abortion clinic. Kelly is the wholesaler for the fetal
tissue. She is the person who has to take this fetus and do what has
to be done to it to get it to the supplier.

An abortionist walked into the lab carrying a steel pan. “Got you some good specimens. Twins,” he said.

The lab technician, Kelly, looked down at two perfectly formed 24-week-old babies. Except for a few nicks from the surgical tongs these babies were unharmed. In fact, Kelly recounts, “they were both alive...they were moving and gasping for air.”

“There is something wrong here,” Kelly protested. “They are moving. I can’t do this. That’s not in my contract.”

Kelly watched as the abortionist filled the pan with water until it covered the nose and mouth of each baby. At that point she left the room. “I would not watch those fetuses moving,” she recalls. “That is when I decided it was wrong.”

“Kelly,” the baby body parts harvester, says that this occasion, as well as several others, lead her to take her story to Life Dynamics Inc. (LDI), a pro-life group based in Texas. 19

Chilling Realities

One hopes such incidents are rare but the nature of fetal research
as a high-profit business gives a powerful incentive to lawbreaking—including
the federal regulation that the abortion procedure should not be in
any way altered.20 In fact, this may be rather common. In
the words of New Hampshire Congressman Christopher Smith:

Stop and think about this. If you do any of the other types of abortions--saline, digoxin, and these other procedures, D&E--what are you going to get? You are going to get something that is going to be an abnormality. No abnormal donors. Within 10 minutes, we want it on ice.The point I am trying to make is, there are only two ways you can get a baby, a fetus, on ice that quickly. One is a live birth; you instantly kill it. Another is partial-birth. If there is another method, I am open-minded. I would like to hear about it. . . . Fresh, wet ice, no known abnormalities; get it on the ice. How do you get a fetus that is not chopped up, that is not poisoned? There are only two places. I talked to you about both of them: Live births, partial births.21

These are chilling realities that we must be unafraid to face. The truth can be ugly.

Circumstances That May Justify Fetal Research

Fetal research, in my opinion, could be morally justified in some circumstances.
Let us say that a woman has a spontaneous miscarriage and the husband
and wife decide that they will donate the unfortunate child’s body to
science. Although other factors might alter the scenario, this may not
be intrinsically evil. However, the present circumstances in the United
States and Europe depart grossly from such a scenario. The researchers
according to their own specifications want “fresh” human corpses with
no abnormalities. This is not often the case in spontaneous miscarriage.
Thus, the only realistic supply of fetal tissue available is from aborted
babies.In the present situation, abortion and fetal tissue research
are inescapably linked. Although all of us want cures for diseases,
means to finding cures in this case may come with a medicine too bitter
to swallow.It is a shallow happiness that is built on inhumanity to
man.